Genealogical History
Of
Hudson And Bergen Counties
New Jersey EARLY SETTLERS OF HUDSON COUNTY  Part A

Originally published in 1900
Cornelius Burnham Harvey,
Editor

Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003

A great majority of the pioneer settlers of Bergen and Hudson
Counties were emigrants from Holland, or descendants of persons
who had emigrated from that country and settled on Manhattan
Island or Long Island. The rest were English, French, Germans,
and Scandinavians. What brought these to the shores of America?
What led them to settle in New Jersey? Who were they? The
limits of this article will permit of only a brief reference to the two
principal causes which impelled them to leave their native land,
overcrowding of population in Holland and the desire to better their
condition.

More than a century had elapsed since the Augustinian monk,
Luther, had nailed his ninety-five theses on the church door at Wittenberg. That act had, at last, wakened into activity all the dormant forces of christendom. During the Middle Ages all learning
and religion had been controlled by the Roman hierarchy. All that
time the papacy had been a confederacy for the conservation of learning, against the barbarism and ignorance of the times; and so long as
the pontiff retained the character of chief clerk of such a confederacy
his power remained irresistible. But as soon as he abandoned the
role of chief clerk in spiritual affairs, and assumed that of secular
prince, the great revolution began. His former friends became his
enemies. The British schoolmen led the way in the revolt, followed
by Wickliff, Huss, Jeronie, and others. The breach kept widening,
until all the countries of Western Europe started like giants out of
their sleep at the first blast of Luther's trumpet. In Northern
Europe the best half of the people embraced the Reformation. The
spark which the monk had kindled lighted the torch of civilization,
which was to illuminate the forests of the Hudson in America.

At no time since this terrible contest began had the Catholic monarchs of Europe been more persistently active and relentlessly cruel
toward the believers in the new religion than at the beginning of emigration to New Netherland. The bloody conflict known as "The
Thirty Years' War" was then raging with all its attendant horrors.
Nevertheless, Holland, of all the circle of nations, had guaranteed
safety to people of every religious belief, and enforced, within her own
borders at least, respect for
civil liberty. As a result she
had become the harbor of refuge and the temporary home of
thousands of the persecuted of
almost every country; the
Brownists from England, the
Waldenses from Italy, the
Labadists and Picards from
France, the Walloons from
Germany and Flanders, and
many other Protestant sects,
all flocked into Holland.
Across her borders flowed a
continual stream of refugees
and outcasts. This influx of
foreigners, augmented by the
natural increase of her own
people, caused Holland to suffer seriously from overcrowding, particularly in her large
cities. A learned Hollander,
writing at that time, said of
the situation: "Inasmuch as
the multitude of people, not only natives but foreigners, who are
seeking a livelihood here, is very great, so that, where one stiver is
to be earned, there are ten hands ready to seize it. Many are obliged,
on this account, to go in search of other lands and residences, where
they can obtain a living."

In the few years preceding 1621 several voyages of discovery and
adventure had been made by the Dutch to New Netherland, but no
colonies had been founded. Letters from these voyagers declared that
New Netherland was a veritable paradise  a land "flowing with
milk and Honey," traversed by numerous great and beautiful rivers,
plentifully stocked with fish; great valleys and plains, covered with
luxuriant verdure; extensive forests, teeming with fruits, game, and
wild animals; and an exceedingly fertile and prolific soil. These and
many similar letters aroused and stimulated many of the discontented
and unemployed of Holland to emigrate to New Netherland with
their families in the hope of being able to earn a handsome livelihood,
strongly fancying that they could live in the New World in luxury
and ease, while in the Old they would still have to earn their bread
by the sweat of their brows.

In 1621 the "States-General" took steps looking toward relief
from the situation, the gravity of which they now fully comprehended.
On June 3 they granted a charter to "The Dutch West India Company" to organize and govern a colony in New Netherland; and in
June, 1623-4, an expedition under Captain Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, of
Amsterdam, carrying thirty families, most of whom were religious
refugees, came over to New Amsterdam and began a settlement on
the lower end of Manhattan Island. Mey, not liking the job of being
director of the new colony, soon returned to Holland, leaving matters
for a time in charge of William Verhulst, who was succeeded by Peter
Minuit in 1626. This first colony was not a success. The colonists
were "on the make." Aside from building a few rude bark huts
and a fort, they busied themselves dickering with the savages for
skins and furs. They tilled no ground, and for three years were non-supporting. On the 1 th of June, 1629, the "States-General" granted
a bill of "Freedoms and Exemptions" to all such private persons as
would plant any colonies in any part of New Netherland (except the
Island of Manhattan), granting to them the fee simple in any land
they might be able to successfully improve. Special privileges were
also granted to members of the West India Company. Whoever of
its members should plant a colony of fifty persons should be a feudal
lord, or Patroon," of a tract "sixteen miles in length, fronting on
a navigable river and reaching eight miles back."

As yet only exploring parties bent on trade with the savages had
traversed Bergen and Hudson Counties. No one had ventured to
"take up" any lands there. But now, under the stimulus of the bill
of "Freedoms and Exemptions," one Michael Pauw, then burgomaster of Amsterdam, was impelled, for speculative purposes no doubt,
to obtain from the Director General of New Netherland, in 1630,
grants of two large tracts, one called "Hoboken Hacking " (land of
the tobacco pipe) and the other "Ahasimus." Both of these tracts
were parts of what is now Jersey City. These grants bore date,
spectively, July 13 and November 22, 1630. The grantee gave one place the name of "Pavonia." Pauw failed
to comply with the conditions set forth in his
deeds and was obliged, after three years of
controversy with the West India Company,
to convey his "plantations" back to that
company. Michael Paulesen, an official of
the company, was placed in charge of them
as superintendent. It is said he built and occupied a hut at Paulus Hook early in 1633.
If so, it was the first building, of any kind
erected in either Bergen or Hudson County. Later in the same year
the company built two more houses : one at Communipaw, afterward
purchased by Jan Evertse Bout, the other at Ahasimns (now Jersey
City, east of the Hill), afterward purchased by Cornelius Van Vorst.
Jan Evertse Bout succeeded -Michael Paulesen as superintendent of
the Pauw plantation, June 17, 1634, with headquarters at Communipaw, then the capital of Pavonia Colony. He was succeeded in
June, 1636, by Cornelius Van Vorst, with headquarters at Ahasimus,
where he kept "open house" and entertained the New Amsterdam
officials in great style.

In 1641 one Myndert Myndertse, of Amsterdam, (bearing the ponderous title of "Van der Heer Nedderhorst,") obtained a grant of all
the country behind (west of) Achter Dull (Newark Bay), and from
thence north to Tappan, including part of what is now Bergen and
Hudson Counties. Accompanied by a number of soldiers, Myndertse
occupied his purchase, established a camp, and proceeded to civilize
the Indians by military methods. It is needless to say that he failed.

He soon abandoned the perilous undertaking of founding a colony,
returned to Holland, and the title to this grant was forfeited. Early
in 1638 William Kieft became Director General of New Netherland,
and on the first day of May following granted to Abraham Isaacsen
Planck (Verplanck) a patent for Paulus Hook (now lower Jersey
City).

There were now two "plantations" at Bergen, those of Planck and
Van Vorst. Parts of these, however, had been leased to, and were
then occupied by, Claes Jansen Van Purmerend, Dirck Straatmaker.
Barent Jansen, Jan Cornelissen Buys, Jan Evertsen Carsbon, Michael
Jansen, Jacob Stoffelsen, Aert Teunisen Van Putten, Egbert Woutersen, Garret Dirckse Blauw, and Cornelius Ariessen. Van Putten
had also leased and located on a farm at Hoboken. All these, with
their families and servants, constituted a thriving settlement. The
existence of the settlement of Bergen was now imperiled by the acts
of Governor Kieft, whose idea of government was based mainly upon
the principle that the governor should get all he could out of the
governed. His treatment of the Indians soon incited their distrust
and hatred of the whites. The savages, for the first time, began to
show symptoms of open hostility. Captain Jan Petersen de Vries, a
distinguished navigator, who was then engaged in the difficult task of
trying to found a colony at Tappan, sought every means in his power
to conciliate the Indians, and to persuade Kieft that his treatment of
them would result in bloodshed.

The crafty and selfish governor turned a deaf ear to all warnings
and advice and continued to goad the Indians by cruel treatment and
harsh methods of taxation. In 1643 an Indian  no doubt under
stress of great provocation  shot and killed a member of the Van
Vorst family. This first act of murder furnished a pretext for the
whites and precipitated what is called "The Massacre of Pavonia,"
on the night of February 25, 1643, when Kieft, with a sergeant and
eighty soldiers, armed and equipped for slaughter, crossed the Hudson, landed at Communipaw, attacked the Indians while they were
asleep in their camp, and, without regard to age or sex, deliberately,
and in the most horrible manner, butchered nearly a hundred of them.
Stung by this outrage upon their neighbors and kinsmen, the northern
tribes at once took the war path, attacked the settlement, burned the
buildings, murdered the settlers, wiped the villages out of existence,
and laid waste the country round about. Those of the settlers who
were not killed outright fled across the river to New Amsterdam. Nor
was peace restored between the savages and the whites until August,
1645, when the remaining owners and tenants of farms returned to the
site of the old village, rebuilt their homes, and started anew.

Kieft having been driven from office, Petrus Stuyvesant was made
Director General, July 28, 1646. Under his administration the settlement at Bergen was revived, grew rapidly, and prospered. Between
his arrival and the year 1669 the following named persons purchased
or leased lands, though all of them did not become actual residents:

All these persons received their deeds, or such titles as they had,
from the Dutch, through the different Director Generals.

The English captured New Netherland from the Dutch in 1664, and;
thereupon, Philip Carteret, by an appointment of the "Lords-Proprietors" of the
Province of East New Jersey, became its first governor. The titles of the settlers of Bergen
Were confirmed by Carteret and his council
in 1668. In 1669, following his appointments governor, Carteret also granted other portions of the lands in Hudson County to the
following named persons:

"The town and corporation of Bergen," as appears by Carteret's
charter, had an area of 11,500 acres. Up to the end of 1669 scarce
one-third of this area had been patented to settlers. The balance,
more than 8,000 acres, was used in common by the patentees, their
heirs, devisees, and grantees, for nearly a century before it was finally
divided and set off to those entitled to it. As is ever the case under
similar circumstances, many of the patentees and their descendants
and grantees encroached upon these common lands. "Tom, Dick,
and Harry" pastured their cattle on them, made lavish use of the
timber, and in various other ways committed waste with impunity.
Many patentees caused surveys to be made, presumed to "take up,"
and used divers parts of the public domain "without any warrant, power, or authority for so doing, without the consent of the majority
of the other patent owners," so that in the course of time it could not
be known how much of these common lands had been taken up and
appropriated. This state of things caused great confusion and
numerous violent disputes between the settlers, who, in January, 1714,
petitioned Governor Hunter for a new charter empowering them, in
their corporate capacity, to convey or lease their common lands, in
fee, for one, two, or three lives or for years.

Governor Hunter, in response to this petition, procured a new
charter for the town and corporation, known as " The Queen Anne
Charter." The power given by this charter had little or no effect in
putting a stop to encroachments upon, and disputes between, the
settlers about the common lands. Thus matters continued until
1643, when another effort was made by the settlers to protect their
rights in the common lands. An agreement was made, dated June
the 16th, of that year, providing for a survey of the common lands and
a determination of how much of the same had been lawfully taken
up, used, or claimed, and by whom. For some reason this agreement
was not carried out, and matters continued to grow worse until December 7, 1763, when the settlers appealed to the legislature for re-
lief. That body passed a bill, which was approved by Governor
Franklin, appointing commissioners to survey, map, and divide the
common lands of Bergen among the persons entitled thereto. These
commissioners, seven in number, made the survey and division and
filed their report and maps on the 2d day of March, 1765, in the secretary's office at Perth Amboy, copies of which report and maps are
also filed in the offices of the clerks of both Hudson and Bergen Counties.

In the division made by the commissioners the common lands were
apportioned among the patentees, hereinbefore named, and their descendants, as well as among the following named persons:

Several other families, namely, those of Day, de Grauw, de Groot.
Hessels, Hopper, Banta, Huysman, Van Giesen, Earle, Franzen, Morris, and Swaen, had become residents of the county without having
lands granted them. It may therefore be safely said that the families above named constituted nearly all of the original settlers of
Hudson County east of the Hackensack River. The westerly portion of the county was included in the purchase by Captain William Sandford from the Parish of St. Mary's in the Island of Barbadoes. Governor Carteret and council granted this tract to Sandford, July 4, 1668.
It contained within its boundaries an area of 15,308 acres, extending
from the point of union of the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers about
seven miles northward along said rivers, to a spring now known as
the Boiling Springs, or Sandford Spring, near Rutherford. This purchase was made by Sandford for himself and Major Nathaniel Kingsland, also from the Island of Barbadoes, and the same was subsequently divided between Sandford and Kingsland. Kingsland, who
became the owner of the northern part (including part of the present
Bergen County), resided at what is now known as "Kingsland
Manor," south of Rutherford, in Bergen County, while Sandford, who
became the owner of the southerly part, resided at what is now East
Newark, in Hudson County. Much of this large section of territory
remained vested in the respective descendants of Sandford and Kingsland for many years after their deaths.